How to Use RSS Feeds

RSS feeds provide any user of the Web with a way of easily storing and finding their favorite websites and blogs, making bookmarking much easier and totally web-based. By using an RSS reader, everything you store is web-based and can be opened from any computer.

Things You'll Need

Open a free account with any one of a number of RSS feed burners or readers, such as Google Reader, iGoogle, Pageflakes, Netvibes and more. These tools, once you've created them, will store your favorite websites and blogs and constantly update them for you. They also help you to organize yours feeds by tags, titles or categories.

Begin to organize your feed reader. Google will prompt you by asking what categories you are interested in, and by suggesting websites you might like. This is helpful to anyone who wants to see what else is available, let's say, in the education category or the politics category. There are many blogs and websites, for example, that Google might suggest to you as a feed in your particular area of interest.

You can also be proactive in "subscribing" to a website feed. For example, if you're an avid reader of a newspaper website, look for the orange RSS feed button now available on most websites and blogs. Simply click on that button and you will be provided with the chance to subscribe to the feed. The link will most likely take you to a choice of readers, and many -- including iGoogle and Google Reader -- are listed. Once you choose, you will receive that site's feed and all its updates.

Remember to go in to your feed reader often and use it as a place to do your reading. Many people who sign up for feeds make their RSS page the first thing that opens when they sign on to the Internet. With iGoogle, you can organize your categories with the use of "tabs" provided by iGoogle on its feeds page. For example, you can create a "politics" tab, a "to do" tab, a "news" tab, and so on. iGoogle also makes suggestions for feeds from its widgets, including clocks, maps and games.

Tips & Warnings

Check frequently for updates to your RSS reader. Many add new gadgets and widgets every day.